For years, I have been crusading for copy to be regarded as the equal of design by designers and clients alike - just as agency copywriters enjoy the same status as art directors. Am I fighting a losing battle? Why is there a battle in the first place?

Industry organs, for a start, are doing no favours. They're obsessed with look, not content - with typography, not copy itself...

On the client side, half the problem is that not everyone thinks they can design. Nearly everyone, however, thinks they can write. They tend to think of design as an enviable skill and hold its exponents in awe. Writing, however, tends to be seen as a chore that doesn't involve as much talent, expertise or discipline as design. Its exponents are word processors or even eccentrics (speaking for myself).

On the designer side, how many design groups do you know with a copy director? While there are obviously some notable exceptions to whom I will resist grovelling such as The Partners, Johnson Banks, Optimism, ico and Philosophy, there are still an alarming number of design groups where copy and hence the copywriter come a poor second. This could be due in part to few faculties of design not making copywriting a compulsory part of the curriculum (with the notable exceptions of Kingston University Faculty of Design and Epsom College of Design).

I'm not referring only to copy for literature and multimedia. Tone of voice is slowly beginning to be acknowledged and addressed in brand guidelines; all too many web pages are crammed with long-winded copy, frequently transposed from existing literature; copy on packaging, which offers a great opportunity to convey brand values, is invariably either mundane or minuscule or both. I recently washed my hair with dog shampoo as a result of myopia in the shower.

Yes, there is low awareness of the power of the written word and ignorance of the contribution copywriters can make (though the welcome arrival of '26', the association for writers and language specialists, will certainly improve matters).

As a result, far too often clients tend to brief the designers only. In many instances, the designers will then go ahead with design in isolation and call in the copywriter later, presenting him or her with a fait accompli.

Worse still, and increasingly often nowadays, clients 'roll their own' copy. The designer then either drops it into the design without question or calls in a copywriter to "tidy it up", often without reference to the original brief.

And then there's the subject of fees - a hornet's nest due to the unawareness and ignorance above. Frequently, clients and design groups have cardiac arrests when fees for copywriting start matching (as they sometimes should) those for design. They also expect writers to work on an hourly or daily rather than a project basis. I don't support this as it penalises fast work and makes no allowance for midnight oil. It also bears no relation to commercial reality. I sincerely hope that the copywriter who came up with "It's the real thing" wasn't on an hourly rate.

In these days of information over-kill, nobody has the time or inclination to read everything with which they're bombarded. Copy and design have to work in tandem to ensure they do. This sounds obvious and simplistic but just look at the mounds of literature and websites around with walls of crowing copy. I've written some of it, I must confess - under duress.

Copy can destroy a design in a second - particularly if it is ill-conceived, written at the readers rather than for them or written in a language which would make them gag when spoken.